State elections board denies Berger *special* hand recount request

The options are narrowing for senator Phil Berger in his efforts to cling to power following his March 3 primary election loss. Canvassing did not change anything in terms of the results.  The law allows for a recount via machine. And Berger asked for it.  But the probability of a machine recount – according to experts — changing the outcome is quite low. 

Here’s the latest from Drive-by Land:

Republican state Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) was handed a setback in his election recount efforts Wednesday when the North Carolina State Board of Elections declined to take up his request for an expedited hand-eye recount of 220 ballots.

The decision comes as Berger seeks to overcome a 23-vote deficit to primary opponent Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page. The request for the hand-eye examination — meaning visual review by human counters without the use of a machine — came as part of Berger’s request for a recount of the race on Tuesday, which remains ongoing.

Of the ballots Berger singled out, 217 are undervotes, in which voters appear to have not voted on a ballot item despite casting a ballot, either because they left the section blank or left an unclear marking. The other three are overvotes, ballots in which multiple candidates appear to have been selected, invalidating the vote

There is no remedy for the former if they truly are undervotes, said State Board of Elections Executive Director Sam Hayes, because the board “can’t account for something that is not there.”

Under state law, “if it is impossible to clearly determine a voter’s choice in a ballot item, the official ballot shall not be counted for that ballot item.” For ballot items where selections cannot be read by a machine, votes can only be counted if “human counters can clearly determine the voter’s choice.”

“We’re going to follow the law as it’s dictated in statute and rule, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Hayes told reporters after the meeting. “That’s why the board took no action today — to let this process, as it’s laid out, go forward.”

Those 220 ballots may still get a hand-eye review as part of a full manual recount if it’s required in the race.

After completing the machine recount, each county board of elections will conduct a hand-eye recount of ballots in 3% of the precincts in the race. But only if a discrepancy detected in that randomly selected sample is enough to overturn the results when extrapolated to the full pool of votes would a hand-eye recount of all ballots take place.

Jonathan Felts, a spokesman for the Berger recount effort, said the board’s decision threatens to disenfranchise voters as the ballots in question “have never been counted” and require “a careful inspection” to ensure they have been correctly identified as over- or undervotes.

“These citizens obviously made the effort to vote, and one can safely assume they want their vote to be counted. Their ballot deserves to be examined for voter intent,” Felts said. “Today’s ruling leaves little recourse for every legal vote being counted other than to seek a hand recount. But no decision has yet been made on that front.”

Spending $12 million of other people’s money to eviscerate your opponent — and you STILL manage to lose by 23 votes. Losing your home county by 2-to-1.  (*Oh, the agony …*)

The Mustache™ is hinting that they’re planning to lawyer up and pull a Jefferson Griffin.  And why not?  It worked *so well* for the plan’s namesake.

I wonder if the party establishment will moan as loudly this time about all the damage the court fight is doing to the party?